I don't get your drift, Phil.

My biggest loves in all music are Beethoven, Mozart and the 19th century Romantic composers (with the glaring exception of Wagner). I've read a good deal about their lives and times as well as revelling in their music and I can see how that music is bound together by what Sir George Grove called "the golden chain." I love Gershwin, Ravel and Bernstein but my scholarship doesn't run as deep with them. I understand what the "jazz influence" is that underlies much of their music but I don't delve much below the surface of what that means. I enjoy their music on its own terms without worrying too much about the "politics" of it all. My loss, mebbe, but valid nonetheless...